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Tibetan unrest escalates Nearby provinces join protests against Chinese rule despite orders to stop CARA ANNA AND TINI TRAN; The Associated Press Last updated: March 17th, 2008 01:21 AM (PDT) TONGREN, China – Protests spread from Tibet into three neighboring provinces Sunday as Tibetans defied a Chinese government crackdown, while the Dalai Lama decried what he called the “cultural genocide” taking place in his homeland. Demonstrations widened to Tibetan communities in Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces, and authorities mobilized security forces across a broad expanse of western China. In Qinghai province, riot police sent to prevent protests set off tensions when they took up positions outside a monastery in Tongren. Dozens of monks, defying a directive not to gather in groups, marched to a hill where they set off fireworks and burned incense in what one monk said was a protest, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. In a sign that authorities were preparing for trouble, AP and other foreign journalists were ordered out of the Tibetan parts of Gansu and Qinghai provinces by police who told them it was for their “safety.” Meanwhile, police in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, searched buildings for people who took part in a violent anti-Chinese uprising last week. The deadline was today to surrender or face punishment. Tibet’s governor Champa Phuntsok said today that 16 people died and dozens were wounded in the violence, which broke out in Lhasa on Friday. He described 13 as “innocent civilians,” and said three other people died jumping out of buildings to avoid arrest. China’s state media had said earlier that 10 civilians were killed. Phuntsok also said security forces did not carry or use weapons. Speaking from India, the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetans, called for an international investigation into China’s crackdown on demonstrators in Lhasa, which his exiled government says left 80 people dead. “Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place,” the Dalai Lama said, referring to an influx of Chinese migration into Tibetan areas and restrictions on Buddhist practices, policies that have generated deep resentment among Tibetans. Tensions boiled over outside the county seat of Aba in Sichuan province when armed police tried to stop Tibetan monks from protesting, according to a witness who refused to give his name. The witness said a policeman had been killed and three or four police vans had been set on fire. Eight bodies were brought to a nearby monastery, while others reported that up to 30 protesters had been shot, according to activist groups the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy and the London-based Free Tibet Campaign. The claims could not be confirmed. Sunday’s demonstrations follow nearly a week of protests in Lhasa that escalated into violence Friday, with Tibetans attacking Chinese and torching their shops, in the longest and fiercest challenge to Chinese rule in nearly two decades. Complicating Beijing’s task, the spreading protests fall two weeks before China’s celebrations for the Beijing Olympics kick off with the start of the torch relay, which will pass through Tibet. Though many were small in scale, the widening Tibetan protests are forcing Beijing to pursue suppression while on the run. Sunday’s lockdown in Tongren required police imported from other towns, locals said. The Chinese government attempted to control what the public saw and heard about protests that erupted Friday. Access to YouTube.com, usually readily available in China, was blocked after videos appeared on the site Saturday showing foreign news reports about the Lhasa demonstrations, montages of photos and scenes from Tibet-related protests abroad. Television news reports by CNN and the BBC were periodically cut during the day, and the screens went black during a live speech by the Dalai Lama carried on the networks. China’s communist government had hoped Beijing’s hosting of the Aug. 8-24 Olympics would boost its popularity at home as well as its image abroad. Instead the event has attracted the scrutiny of China’s human rights record. Originally published: March 17th, 2008 01:21 AM (PDT)

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